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Title: Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Von Trapp, Maria A. Trapp ISBN: 0-440-99032-7 Publisher: Dell Publishing Pub. Date: December, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $1.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.65 (31 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The best book I have ever read.
Comment: The Sound of Music is my favourite film I have seen it at least 25 times. But when I read the real story I liked it more. I think Maria was a great woman who kept the family together with her love. It was the most important thing for her. When I am sad and fed up with all the things around me I always read the book /of course only parts of it/ and after reading I always feel better. It is One Of My Favourite Things! I would recommend to everybody to read it. It is about love and history.
Rating: 5
Summary: A slightly skewed version of reality
Comment: Along with everyone else who has read this book, I loved "The Sound of Music" and knew that it was a glossed over account of their real life. I picked up this book, hoping that there would me some truth to it. While I am sure that the majority of the events DID happen, they way they are presented leaves much to be desired. I got the impression reading this book that there was yet a 3rd side to the story that is not presented here.
This is the story of the family, as told by Maria. This is the book on which the movie is based. The book leads the reader to believe that everything was sunshine and roses and that whenever anything bad happened, God provided the opportunities. While I am not doubting Maria's faith, I also think that she worked her tail off to get some of the opportunites the family recieved.
This book is very moving. Some of the antics of the little kids made me chuckle and the story of Georg's death brought tears to my eyes. I would be interested in finding out what happened later.....
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the movie.
Rating: 5
Summary: Curiosity satisfied
Comment: This book is a personal family history of the Trapp Family Singers. It begins with Maria's days in the convent, traces the migrations of the family during the War years, and finishes in their family home in Vermont.
Ever since seeing The Sound of Music for the first time, I have always been curious about what happened next- -did the entire family manage to safely climb the Alps to freedom? How did they pay for their journey to the US? And what connection do they have to the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont? Maria Trapp answers all of these questions in this book. While the musical version of their life did convey many of the main episodes, the storyline of the musical compressed these episodes so that they seemed to happen one after the other: Maria leaves the convent, teaches the children how to sing, marries their father, and they flee the country at the outbreak of the war, all within 2 hours. Phew! Like the musical, this book also starts with Maria's last day in the convent, but more than a year passed before she and the Baron were married, in 1927. They were married some 12 years and had 2 additional children along the way before leaving Austria. Yes, as unknowns, the family did win a song festival, but that was in 1936, and by the time they fled Austria, they were already quite well-known and had toured Europe as a family singing group. Indeed, one additional reason for leaving the country when they did was that they had been invited to sing at Hitler's birthday.
When driving past the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, I have always thought of it as a ritzy place, and assumed that the money to purchase it and develop it had come from the Baron's family fortune. In reading this book, I found that that was not the case at all. The Baron's fortune was lost before the family left Austria, and they arrived in the US on borrowed money. In their new American lives, they had to restart from the very bottom of the social ladder, digging themselves out of debt before they could even begin to think of buying new clothes or a home. For years they dressed in the same simple clothes they had arrived in, and they built their first house in Vermont from the foundation up with their bare hands. That is, the girls did, since the two boys had been drafted into the US army and were fighting in Europe at the time.
This book relates all of these details and many more, with a considerable sprinkling of humor. Maria comes across as a determined optimist, a young girl barely out of her teens who arrived on the doorstep of a house filled with grief and dissension. Through her personal character and upbringing, she created a family with strong bonds to each other that was able to withstand remarriage, loss of fortune, becoming refugees, and establishing a home and a livelihood in a distant foreign land. The two elements that were her constant guidance and source of inspiration were her faith and the music. This book is peppered with remarks that ring true even today: "The family that sings together, plays together, prays together, and usually stays together." "Our age has become so mechanical that this has also affected our recreation. People have gotten used to sitting down and watching a movie, a ball game, a television set. It may be good once in a while, but it certainly is not good all the time. Our own faculties, our imagination, our memory, the ability to do things with our mind and our hands- -they need to be exercised. If we become too passive, we get dissatisfied." The Sound of Music is a great story, but the story presented in this book is much better.
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Title: Agathe von Trapp: Memories Before and After The Sound of Music by Agathe Von Trapp, Agathe Trapp ISBN: 1577362861 Publisher: Hillsboro Pr Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Forever Liesl: A Memoir of the Sound of Music by Charmian Carr, Jean A. S. Strauss ISBN: 0140298401 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Maria by Maria Von Trapp ISBN: 0380007835 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: April, 1974 List Price(USD): $2.75 |
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Title:The Original Trapp Family Singers ASIN: B000007QGP Publisher: Rca Pub. Date: 16 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $16.98 |
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Title: The World of the Trapp Family by William Anderson, David Wade ISBN: 1890757004 Publisher: Anderson Wade Pubns Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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